1. Field of the Invention
The term IC card is used to denote cards, generally with the size of a credit card, but alternatively tokens, which are provided with an electronic microcircuit based on memories and a microcontroller designed to make it possible to perform a transaction, for example a financial or medical transaction.
The present invention relates to a system which is formed by an IC card and an IC card reader which makes it possible to execute the transaction for which the IC card is intended.
2. Discussion of the Background
Known systems having an IC card and reader include, on the one hand, IC cards which are provided with memories and possibly a microcontroller and are used merely as a data medium supplemented by security means and, on the other hand, IC card readers which are intelligent enough to control the performance of the transaction in question.
IC card readers are equipped with a system which provides a link to an IC card, either by means of a multipin electrical connector, or by means of a capacitive or inductive antenna. They may be self-contained and work on their own, or transparent and used to access a computer system. When they are self-contained, they have communication elements which are sufficient to allow an individual to monitor the steps of a transaction: keyboard and display which, like the link to the IC card, are managed by the reader's own microcontroller which has an application program specific to the transaction in question. When they are transparent, they behave as a simple input/output port, dedicated to an IC card, for a computer system programmed especially for the transaction in question. In both cases, they transmit instructions to the IC card, which are set in a form which accords with a specific exchange protocol, often the one defined in standard ISO 7816-3, and the IC card merely executes these instructions and gives the report.
The intelligence of the transaction lies either in the reader or in the computer system associated with the reader. The drawback of this is the need for specialization of the reader, or the associated computer system, according to the type of transaction. Thus, if the type of transaction needs to be changed, it is not enough to change the programming of the IC card. It is also necessary to change the programming of the reader, if it is self-contained, or the programming of the associated computer system, if the reader is a transparent one. This constitutes an obstacle to the development of IC card applications.
To overcome this drawback, it has been proposed to shift the intelligence, that is to say the management of the transaction, to the IC card itself, which then stores the transaction management program in its memory and executes it.
The reader then becomes an external component whose main function is to provide the resources needed for carrying out the transaction and, in particular, to provide the IC card with interfaces such as a keyboard, display, asynchronous link and means for connecting to another IC card or to a computer system.
The problem then arises of supplying the reader with certain instructions to be carried out in relation to the transaction management program which is stored in a memory in the IC card and is run by it.
In order to solve this problem, it is known, for example from European Patent Application EP-A-0,490,455, to define a communication protocol between an IC card and an IC card reader using a small number of specific commands for certain actions asked of the reader by an IC card, and requests and responses on the part of the reader which are compatible with these commands, having fairly general characteristics in order to suit various types of IC cards and readers. However, this solution has the drawback of limiting the possibilities and nature of the exchange between an IC card and its reader to a fairly narrow framework due to the specificity of the commands, requests and responses. It also has the drawback of no longer making it possible to adhere to the existing standards regarding the management of communications between an IC card and an IC card reader, and consequently of being incompatible with the previous generation of IC cards.